Outside of her costume, Victoria Valentine is not a particularly striking beauty. She is clearly of an athletic bent, keeps her hair in a short and severe black crop, and tends to favour practical, sensible clothing (albeit of a high-quality, usually designer make). Given the beautiful and esteemed circles she tends to move in, she can come across as severe, even dour, compared to her fellows.

Her costumed alter-ego, Incognito, lives up to the name. She wears a billowing, dark grey cape and tight-fitting grey leotard along with a full-face mask with a stylized black question mark covering her face. There is no skin shown whatsoever, meaning that the only certainty about the person beneath the costume is that she is 5’9, extremely physically fit, and very insistent on her privacy.

(If this character takes off I will probably commission some art; alas I have not been able to make Heromachine cooperate with my idea and I got bored trying!)

History:

Victoria’s story is bound inexorably to her father’s.

Tyrone Gold inherited the vast Gold family fortune after his father died young. The Golds had built up a substantial business empire and, for decades, had been renowned for their philanthropic works in the Freedom City community. Tyrone seemed to be no different; he, his wife, and his children were involved in many charities.

Victoria was the middle child of three, and was allowed to pursue her passion unhindered. She set herself apart from an early age due to a fascination with martial arts. She had an aptitude for it, and by the age of 12 she was a black belt in Karate, had mastered several forms of Kung Fu, and was more than capable of beating her snot-nosed 16 year old brother handily when he tried to throw his weight around.

Tyrone forbade her from entering the Olympics, which was disheartening to young Vicky, but she masked her disappointment. She was not only interested in the physical aspect of her chosen art, but was fascinated by the cultural and meditative practices as well. She came to understand her talent as a tool for mastery of the self rather than as something for her own self-aggrandisement.

In truth, Tyrone had darker motivations. He didn’t want his daughter – or anyone else – stealing the spotlight from him. He loved fame more than he loved anything else, with the possible exception of money. Both things would lead him down a sad path.

As they grew, family members formed their own passion projects. Victoria sponsored inner-city programs based around teaching martial arts to underprivileged youths in order to build the self-confidence and mastery that she found so helpful. Her brother was heavily involved in Veteran’s programs. Her sister worked heavily with groups to increase education and literacy standards across the world.

When it all came crashing down, it happened very fast.

At the start of 2017, a journalist, Daniel Grey, turned up dead. Then a cop, Fred Jones. Both were found to have been investigating various Gold holdings. Not long after that, the whole rotten story broke.

The Gold Family – or, more specifically Tyrone and his wife Juliet – had been bankrolling criminal families across Freedom City and beyond. The Gold Corporation and its many holdings and subsidiaries saw their stock price plummet, and the whole family was arrested.

The family name was dragged through the mud, and even worse for Vicky, she was forced to see that her parents and siblings were all implicated. Even her own programs were shown to have been used as recruiting grounds for mob heavies, though without her knowledge. Whilst she and her siblings were cleared of any actual illegal wrongdoing in court, her mother and father were directly implicated in the deaths and in money laundering charges.

Vicky had always prided herself on her ability to read others; to see the truth at their hearts and view the world clearly. When she looked into her father’s eyes at court that day, she saw that he had always been a monster; that he had played her, and the rest of the world, as fools, and that her focus on self-improvement had blinded her to the larger ramifications of her family’s actions on the world.

It was painful to witness the death of her family name, but even more painful to realise that it deserved to die. The Gold Corporation and the family went into overdrive to try and rehabilitate their public image. Everyone, that is, except Victoria. She went on a trip around the world to fall back, regroup, and consider her next path.

It was whilst she was ascending the Lhotse mountain in Tibet that she came across the man who would change her life.

When she first met him, Master Wen seemed like a rather inconsequential man. He was boorish, loud, and generally unkempt. He was also very insistent that he would climb the mountain with her, and she couldn't seem to persuade him otherwise. She was worried that an old man like him would get himself hurt, and she couldn't persuade him to turn back. Exasperated, she gave in and allowed him to join her. To her surprise, he was able to keep pace easily despite a lack of any appreciable climbing gear, and the higher they ascended the peak, the more his annoying chatter turned to genuinely interesting subjects; not least of which was his concept of the Wheel of Fate.

According to this theory, fate turned in a wheel; all things turned in a cycle, and those fully in tune with the flow of fate could exert influence upon it. She wasn’t sure she understood the relevance, but she respected the old master enough to listen and to try and learn.

It was on the thirteenth day of their shared journey that they were suddenly attacked by a dozen ninja. This came, to put it mildly, at something of a surprise to Victoria – but the fact of a second extremely capable combatant was more surprising to them. During the battle, however, she witnessed Master Wen take a fatal blow – only for the ancient master to glow a brilliant white, and the attack miss him completely.

In the aftermath of the battle he explained that he was part of a sect of warriors who had been fighting to bring down a group known as the ‘Katanarchists’ since the end of the second world war. They sought understanding of the Great Wheel, and he wished to put an end to their abuse of mystical secrets.

It felt as though her eyes were opening to a world she had always known existed – who doesn’t know about superheroes and supervillains? – but had never truly pieced together with her own talents. All at once, the path to personal redemption was laid clear for her.

Together, they finished her journey, and she swore then and there to oppose such forces. Master Wen inducted her into the Guardians of the Wheel, and she spent the rest of the year learning the martial secret of wrestling fate itself.

Now, she has returned to Freedom City, as she has heard rumours that the Katanarchists are active in the City, and that her father is working to appeal the charges against him with some of the most expensive lawyers money can buy.

The path to redemption seems clear. She’s just going to have to do it… Incognito.

Personality & Motivation:

Victoria is motivated by three core drives.

The first is guilt. Unwittingly, she has been used by her family to inflict incalculable damage against the communities she loved and wanted to serve. She feels strongly that she has a moral duty to atone for that culpability, even if she was completely ignorant of the abuse her programs were being put to.

The second is anger. She is extremely, terrifyingly angry with her family. She feels that they do not deserve redemption. The family name should burn and they should never be trusted again. This is why she is so set on remaining nameless in her hero work; she does not want to risk any slight rehabilitation to the Gold family name through her actions. She works to atone for herself, personally, and to make sure that their actions do not go unscrutinised again. She feels betrayed, and that betrayal has cut her very deeply.

The third, and arguably most important, is honour. Victoria has come to understand that peace, security and safety are not things that we can take for granted; they must be guarded by those with the strength to guard them. She is proud to count herself as one of those individuals, and feels that honour demands she make up for the decade or so of inaction since she could have, theoretically, begun doing what she does now.

In terms of personality, Vicky can seem somewhat dour. She is slow to trust these days, and views everyone with an (unhealthy?) degree of scepticism. In her public guise she is open and clear about the fact that she is ashamed of her criminal parents and fully believes that the rest of her family were aware of the crimes being committed and should go to jail. As Incognito, she is guarded and paranoid, highly unlikely to trust almost anyone with the truth of her identity or her secret crusade against the Katanarchists.

Powers & Tactics:

Incognito has only one true ‘power’, that of the mystical martial arts technique ‘The Wheel Turns’.

This technique sees her literally grasp fate and bend it to her will, rolling it back to turn aside the success of an opponent’s strike and force them to try again. At present, she is barely an initiate in this art; true Masters like Master Wen are able to manipulate fate for a wide range of effects, she is only able to force fate to reconsider a blow against herself.

The rest of her combat tactics come from her martial arts. She is incredibly skilled at reading her opponents, perhaps one of the best that has ever lived, and engaged in one-on-one combat she can make it extremely difficult to touch her. She has mastered multiple styles of unarmed combat to turn her body into a potent weapon; but even so, she is frankly human and sometimes she needs to rely on other tricks to tip the scales, such as smoke pellets or stunning blows.

She has also purchased a wide range of useful gadgets to assist in her crime-fighting career. The most important is undoubtedly her chakrams – a traditional weapon of the Guardians of the Wheel – which have expanded her ability to reach out and touch her enemies significantly, even if she broadly prefers to fight close up and personal.

Power Descriptions:

The Wheel Turns is a mystical technique where, for an instant after receiving a blow, the individual seems to freeze in place. This is coupled with a bright white glow and a circular blur behind her as the Wheel of Fate is forcibly turned backwards. If she performs the technique correctly (her opponent rerolls and misses) things carry on with her in a new position; if she fails, the blow strikes true and she has to deal with it.

Complications:

Family Reunion: The Gold Family is, with the exception of Victoria, pretty horrible. The Gold Corporation (still) has its fingers in many criminal pies. Tyrone and Juliet Gold continue to exert influence on the criminal world from inside prison, her older brother (Jacob) and younger sister (Valerie) have their own burgeoning careers in drug running, weapons and other illicit goods. Victoria feels compelled to try and clean up this mess and see her family punished wherever possible.

Guardian of the Wheel: Incognito is a member of the Guardians of the Wheel – an ancient mystical order at war with the Katanarchists. Not only does she care deeply about Master Wen, her one-time mentor, but the Katanarchists are quite aware of their foe and would love to remove her from their side. This also brings with it an obligation to listen to other Guardians of the Wheel; she is only a recent Initiate with little standing in the organisation.

Remember the Name: The Gold Family are recently disgraced. If people know who Victoria Gold is, they are likely to remember the scandal and see her as one of the many fat cats who have exploited the poor and vulnerable for their own ends.

Those Left Behind: Victoria Gold once sponsored numerous martial arts-based initiatives to help kids from impoverished backgrounds. These were, unknown to her, used as recruiting grounds for mafia enforcers and similar henchmen. She feels a strong responsibility to guide these people back onto the right path.

So that should be something like Damage 2 (combat training, PFs: Accurate 2, Innate, Mighty) [6PP]

You can get 4 of those from the Martial Strike and Attack Specialization: Unarmed - the good news is, we've also house-ruled Defensive Roll to giving 2 Tou per rank rather than 1, so that'll give you some solid PP right there!

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I've updated the Chakrams; the problem with going for a power for the unarmed strike is that it messes with the stunning attack (I think?) so I dropped down Improved Initiative and shifted another point into dodge focus to boost baseline strength up to 20 - she's now really ripped, but still within human limits and I think that maths works out!